The difficult conversation

If you're in a position of leadership or management the difficult conversation is something you're going to have to initiate from time to time. But what if you just don't like having them?

I should probably define what I mean by the difficult conversation. It could be someone is being dismissed from their job (whether paid or voluntary); it might be someone isn't performing well at their role and something needs to be done; it might be changes are coming and people are not going to like them. It might be someone's behaviour isn't acceptable... you get the idea. It isn't necessarily one to one, it could be as part of a larger group but the key thing is that one or more person involved doesn't want to be dealing with the issue.


Of course the difficult conversation is a two way thing and sometimes you have initiate one with someone who is above you in the pecking order. This can be really difficult.

Not everybody finds these conversations difficult, but most do in one way or another and chances are the cold, unfeeling manager who doesn't seem to care about you or your family is probably putting up a bit of a front in order to keep some distance.

That of course is not how one should deal with these things... so how should you do it?

I certainly don't have all the answers but here are some of the things I've learned:

Have the conversation, no matter how difficult
The temptation is to avoid the elephant in the room. There are many strategies for this and in my view none of them are acceptable. You might just ignore things and hope they get better. You could spread rumours and gossip in the hope something might change. You could engineer a situation that sees the other party feeling they have to step down. You could use scatter gun communication that risks tarring an entire team with the same brush of failure rather than talk to an individual.

Each of these I have either done or witnessed. No matter what anyone might tell you they are not valid ways of dealing with something. They are dishonest. Don't do it.

There are no short cuts or easy ways out of the difficult conversation. If you think you've found one, you're probably lying to yourself (and others).

Make notes beforehand
If this is to be an emotionally charged conversation it's wise to make sure you know what you need to say. Everyone is different in how to best handle this. I've found having some bullet points, making sure every point is clear in my mind, help me to keep focussed and ensure I say what needs to be said.

Listen
As I mentioned here listening is extremely important. It's easy to focus on delivering the difficult thing you have to say and not really listen to the response. A conversation is a two way thing. Give the other person chance to respond and be ready to listen, understand and process what they have to say; it might change everything.

Don't brush it off
When something comes up, deal with it. Too often I've heard something like: "This isn't the place to talk about this". That is almost never true and usually means: "I don't want to deal with this now". You might not want to, but you probably should.

Talk before it's too late
Reconciliation is always possible, but it's much better to avoid the need for it. If something isn't going well be upfront about it. Talk about it directly with the person involved. Don't discuss it at length with others first, just grow a pair... and talk.